In another thread, someone brought up some types of logical fallacies, including tu quoque, ad hominem, and reductio ad absurdum. I know what an ad hominem attack* is, but what are the others? I’m certain there are others, so what are they?
Thanks!
~~Baloo
Don’t have any text in front of me, but one I can recall is “post hoc ergo propter hoc.” From what I recall, this essentially is “after this, therefore because of this.” The fallacy is this: if B happened after A, A must have caused B. I walk into the room and you get a headache; therefore, I cause headaches.
Someone posted this the other day:
Seatbelts fastened? Then away we go!
argumentum ad verecundiam: appeal to authority:
an authority is cited, although the authority is in fact not an authority in the issue at hand; ie, saying that your biology teacher thinks Shakespeare’s a crackpot, so he must have been
argumentum ad populum: appeal to the people:
variation on above, using the people as an authority; argues that something must be true because most people believe it is, like “50,000 smokers can’t be wrong!”
argumentum ad baculum: appeal to force:
basically a threat; warning someone of bad consequences by refusing to accept your argument, as in “if this man is let off the hook, he will kill again!”
argumentum ad misericordiam: appeal to pity:
arousing sympathy to gain support, such as saying that someone committed a crime because he is poor and supports 15 kids, all of which are in rehab, and therefore is innocent
argumentum ad ignoratiam: appeal to ignorance
saying that since we can’t prove something is true/false, it must be false/true; like when people say “there’s no proof of God, ergo there is no God”
ad hominem: against the person:
attack on the person, not their position in an argument; saying that you shouldn’t vote for someone because he’s an atheist or divorced his 4th wife
—ad hominem circumstantial argument:
suggesting but not explicitly stating poor moral character, offering motives behind actions; saying that your dentist wants to do a root canal because it is expensive
—ad hominem tu quoque: you too!:
reversing the argument back onto the arguer; saying “yeah, I stole $40 from you, but you stole $60 from me a month ago!”
false cause:
saying that one thing causes another, even though there is no real evidence of it; like saying that since most crack users started on marijuana, marijuana must lead to crack use
—slippery slope:
variation of false cause, saying one thing leads to another leads to another until chaos; like gun control opponents saying that one ban leads to another leads to loss of all guns
either/or:
presenting argument as though there are only two options; someone saying “I don’t like Bush or Gore, but Bush is better than Gore”, when in fact he should’ve voted for Harry Browne ahem
equivocation:
equating one word’s connotation or contextual meaning to another’s; such as saying “Logic is about arguments, so I should be good at it, since I argue alot with my parents”, because the two arguments are used in a different since
hasty generalization:
generalization based on unrepresentative sample; saying that since 80% of the junkies you surveyed think that marijuana should be legal, 80% the country does too
fallacy of composition/division:
saying that the whole must have a trait because each member does; “Every singer is good, so the choir must be good”
saying that the parts must have traits of the whole; “It is cold often in Minnesota. Because Minneapolis is in Minnesota, it is often cold there.”
false analogy:
assuming since two things are like in one aspect, they are like in others; “Jack, a cornerback on our football team, is a jerk, so Jerry, cornerback on your football team, must be also”
begging the question:
assuming the point under question is true; “The Bible says God exists, and since the Bible is God’s word, God exists.”
straw man:
misrepresenting an argument to make it easier to defeat; saying that the correlation between smoking and lung cancer can’t be true, because logically it does not follow; however, the correlation did not assert that lung cancer is a direct result of smoking
red herring:
draw attention away from issue to some easier, but seemingly related issue; many think that quotas are a red herring of affirmative action
Okay, how’s that for starters?
I guess somebody should point out that reductio ad absurdum is not a fallacy. It’s a method of proving a proposition by showing that the assumption that the proposition is false leads to a contradiction.
This is the coolest thing I’ve seen in at least 2.3 weeks! Thanks, chique!!